04/01 @ 8:00pm - Unsound Festival New York Labs: Collaborations 1: HATI with Z’ev + MERCE (Shelley Burgon & Maria Chavez) + Anna Zaradny with Aki Onda

Buy Tickets | Admission: $12 / $10 for members

Photo by Szymon Roginski

Unsound New York Labs kicks off at ISSUE Project Room with a series of collaborations: HATI (PL) collaborates with Z’ev (US); MERCE, a collaboration between harpist Shelley Burgon & avant-turntablist Maria Chavez (US); and Anna Zaradny (PL) collaborates with New York-based Walkman manipulator Aki Onda (US). Unsound Labs comes from the idea of festival as laboratory, a place where artists are free to experiment and collaborate with their peers.


HATI + Z’EV

HATI is an audiovisual project based on sound of ethnic instruments from all over the world as well as hand-made instruments or found objects. HATI forms a link between a personal interest in modern improvised and acoustic music with ritual and meditation. Since 2003 HATI have performed many times in Poland, Germany, Spain, Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland, Northern Ireland, England and France and on festivals, e.g.: Equinox Festival (London, 2009), Bleisound Festival (Monachium, 2009), Wroclaw Industrial Festival (2005 & 2007), Audio Art (Krakow, 2006), Ambient Festival (Gorlice, 2008), Open’er Festival (Gdynia, 2008), Festiwal w Krajobrazie (Inowlodz, 2004-2007), Temple of Silence Festival (2007 & 2008). In 2006 members of HATI organized and performed 2 tours with Z’EV, one of the founders of ‘industrial’ – the cultural movement. All HATI albums received very good reviews, their unusual magic sound and power was emphasized. The band was founded in 2001 by Rafal Iwanski and Dariusz Wojtas. They formed many psychedelic rock and industrial experimental musical projects since the beginning of the 90′. Since 2007 HATI have performed as a duo: Rafal X-NAVI Iwanski and Rafal SABON Kolacki and ocasionally with Dariusz Brzostek. They are also the organizers of CoCArt Music Festival (in cooperation with Centre of Contemporary Art in Torun).

Live cooperation with (among others): Z’EV (+ full lenght album), John Zorn, PURE (+ studio), Robert Curgenven (+ studio), WEREJU, Phil Maggi, Patrick Mcginley, Maksims Shentelevs, Andrzej Przybielski, Marcelo Aguirre, Maciej MAGURA Góralski, Andrzej LAL Kasprzyk (+ full lenght album), KO-ON-TEN, pathMAN, MOLR DRAMMAZ, Mirosław Rajkowski, MIRT, Renoised, Peter Puype, Marek Styczyński (studio), Andrzej Wasilewski (video & audio), Raymond Salvatore Harmon (video), Jacek Zieliński (video), Sławomir Ciesielski (studio).

HATI played on one stage with such artists like (among others): Asmus Tietchens, TROUM, Thomas Koner, ASTRO/Hiroshi Hasegawa, SUDDEN INFANT, Vitor Joaquim, REFORMED FACTION, Antoine Chessex, MODULATE, IDIOSYNCRASIA, LAST DOMINION LOST, JOB KARMA, HALO MANASH, BIG CITY ORCHESTRA, N. and many others

Z’ev: Conceptual artist, sound sculptor, and poet. After studying at CalArts with Concrete poet Emmett Williams he produced visual and sound poetries, and was included in the “Second Generation” show at the Museum of Conceptual Art in San Francisco in 1975. While but one of the progenitors of the ‘industrial movement’ in the mid-70’s, he, along with neil megson, was primarily responsible for delivering the ‘tribal’ impulse and esthetic into the Western cultural milieu between the years 1978-1984.

While generally most known as a solo performer, since 2003 he has been concentrating on cooperative and collaborative composition and performance, recording and performing with: oren ambarchi, hans joachim irmler [as FAUZ’t], david jackman/organum, jason kahn, kknull, larsen, franciso lopez, merzbow, bj nilsen, stephen o’malley, osso exotico, pita, boyd rice, the.bänd, kasper t.toeplitz, luc van acker, nico vascellari [as Pslayer], chris watson, and john zorn.

MERCE

Multi-instrumentalist Shelley Burgon is best known for her improvisatorial work using harp and laptop. She is a member of the chamber group Ne(x)tworks and the band Stars Like Fleas. Shelley has performed her music for series such as the the MATA Festival, Issue Project Rooms Points in a Circle, free103point9 Wave Farm and Summer Winds. In May 2009 she was honored to premiere a new piece for the Merce Cunningham Hudson Valley Project at the Dia:Beacon. Shelley holds an MFA in Electronic Music from Mills College. She can be heard as a collaborator and guest on many labels including Hometapes, Skirl, Tzadik and Ipecac. She is inspired by Maryanne Amacher and is currently at work on a solo electronic record.

Maria Chavez is an avant-turntablist whose work focuses on solo electric-acoustic sound pieces using a collection of new and broken needles, which she calls “pencils of sound.” Many of her live sound installations explore the paradox of time and the present moment, with many influences stemming from improvisation in contemporary art. In 2008, the Jerome foundation awarded Chavez an Emerging Artist Grant, and in 2009 she received a Van Lier Fellowship. She was an artist in residence with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company and the DIA:Beacon Museum and recently performed for Christian Marclay and the Whitney Museum of American Art as part of Christian Marclay: FESTIVAL.


Anna Zaradny + Aki Onda

Photo by Szymon Roginski

Anna Zaradny is one of Poland’s best known experimental musicians. Anna brings a much needed and appreciated sense of feminine grace and patience with her complex, slow-shifting laptop work. Along with Robert Piotrowicz (also appearing at Unsound Festival New York), Anna co-founded and co-curated Poland’s most important Festival of Improvised and Experimental Music – Musica Genera. On the label of the same name she has released two collaborative albums with the likes of Tony Buck & Cor Fuhler and Robert Piotrowicz & Burkhard Stangl. Her debut solo album “Mauve Cycles” was released in 2008 and was described by Modisti.com as featuring a “sensitivity rooted in the aesthetics of ’60 sonoristic avant-garde (Pauline Oliveros, David Tudor, Gordon Mumma).”

She appeared at the The No Fun House of Horror event during Unsound Krakow 2010 alongside like minded artist Carlos Giffoni (No Fun). Anna regularly participates in international festivals, performing over the last ten years at festivals like Whatismusic?-Sydney/Melbourne, All Ears – Oslo, Club Transmediale – Berlin and taking parts in exhibitions of contemporary art at venues such as KW Institute for Contemporary Art Berlin, Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw and Silberkuppe, Berlin. This year she will release two new albums – a solo record for her own Musica Genera label and a split LP with Burkhard Stangl for Bocianrecords.

Aki Onda is an electronic musician, composer, and photographer. Onda was born in Japan and currently resides in New York. He is particularly known for his Cassette Memories project – works compiled from a “sound diary” of field-recordings collected by Onda over a span of two decades. Onda’s musical instrument of choice is the cassette Walkman. Not only does he capture field recordings with the Walkman, he also physically manipulates multiple Walkmans with electronics in his performances. In another of his projects, Cinemage, Onda produces slide projections of still photo images set to live guitar improvisation. Onda has collaborated with artists such as Michael Snow, Ken Jacobs, Alan Licht, Loren Connors, Oren Ambarchi, Noël Akchoté, Jac Berrocal, Linda Sharrock, and Shelley Hirsch.

Unsound Festival New York is presented by:

Fundacja Tone, the Polish Cultural Institute in New York and the Goethe-Institut New York

In Cooperation With The Trust For Mutual Understanding, The Adam Mickiewicz Institute, City of Krakow, Krakow Festival Office, 6 Zmysłów, Austrian Cultural Forum in New York, Instituto Cervantes de New York, Consulate General of Finland in New York, Royal Consulate of Norway New York, Pro Helvetia

BAMcinématek, Backspin Promotions, Bedroom Community, The Blackened Music Series, Beyond Booking, The Bunker, The David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center, Electronic Music Foundation, European Cities of Advanced Sound, International Cities of Advanced Sound, Film Comment Selects, ISSUE Project Room, Kiss&Tell, (le) Poisson Rouge, Littlefield, No Fun, RVNG/FRKWYS, Goethe-Institut Wyoming Building.

Fundacja Tone is a non-profit, non-governmental organization established in 2008, to promote new forms of art – both sonic and visual, initiating intercultural dialogue by fostering international collaborations Based in Krakow, Fundacja Tone organizes Unsound Festival in Krakow. Like Unsound, Fundacja Tone is committed to promoting music and artists from the eastern side of the EU and creating bonds between the East and West of Europe. Fundacja Tone has realized various cultural projects thanks to support of, and in collaboration with, major Polish and international public institutions and partners.

The Polish Cultural Institute in New York, established in 2000, is a diplomatic mission dedicated to nurturing and promoting cultural ties between the United States and Poland. The Institute initiates, organizes, promotes, and produces a broad range of cultural events in theater, music, film, literature, and the fine arts. It has collaborated with such cultural institutions as Lincoln Center Festival, BAM, Film Society of Lincoln Center, The Museum of Modern Art, Jewish Museum, PEN World Voices Festival, Yale University, and many more.

The Goethe-Institut New York is a branch of the Federal Republic of Germany’s global cultural institute, established to promote the study of German and German culture abroad, encourage international cultural exchange, and provide information on Germany’s culture, society, and politics.

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